


Psncureberry

by May



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Poison, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May/pseuds/May
Summary: Taking a trek through a thick forest doesn't go well for Misty, but it goes even worse for Ash.
Relationships: Kasumi | Misty/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Psncureberry

**Author's Note:**

> Written last year for Whumptober.

At midday, they exit the forest into a broad, sunny clearing. Blades of grass sway in the subtle breeze. A nearby lake sparkles. Misty’s skin prickles. Fighting through the thick undergrowth of the forest has left scratches on her arms, overgrown branches lashing out at rare human visitors. It’s in her sheer nature to consider wading into the water to see if it soothes her.

She glares at the back of Ash’s head, where he sits at the table clutching his plate, his elbows turned out to the sides at boyish angles, his tan skin covered in scratches, like hers. He moves his hand to rub at one, absent-minded. Misty stares daggers at the tufts of hair sticking out of the back of his hat. He didn’t bother brushing before shoving that hat on, she just knows it.

“Y’know, Ash, you could offer to help after making us go through that.” She waits for him to fire back with something cocky and stupid, but he doesn’t say a word, or even turn to give her a sullen look. “Oh, are you ignoring me, now? The nerve…”

Perched on the table, Pikachu raises himself onto his hind legs. His ears twitch as he cocks his head, before he patters out of Misty’s view to be closer to Ash. “Pika?”

Rubbing her sore arms, Misty readies a comment about Ash’s laziness, his abrupt moodiness when he’s clearly the one who’s in the wrong. She stares at him, the acidic words on her tongue, but they dissolve into nothing when she notices the pale tension of his knuckles where he grips his plate. She watches as they start to tremble. She swallows.

“Pika?” The sound of Pikachu’s voice gives her a quick flash of deja vu, before it dissipates. There’s a fear to it that’s difficult to hear.

“Ash, are you-?” Her own voice sounds much smaller than it would have done had she decided to chide him. But all of that is gone, now.

There’s a second stretched, before his head falls forward. Then Ash collapses against the table with a thud, followed by the creak of the table’s legs and the smash of his plate as it falls onto the firm mud underneath. Ash sits slumped, his arms hanging limply by his sides.

“Pikapi!” Pikachu screams, and rises into view, scrabbling at Ash’s shoulders and hair with his paws, nudging the crown of his hat with his nose. It makes Misty’s stomach twist.

“Ash!” Misty no longer has any mental room to think about the scratches on her skin.

Without thinking, she’s at his side, holding his wrist. It’s comforting, and his quick pulse reverberates through her fingertips. Misty takes a breath and swallows against a lump in her throat. Brock has moved away from their simmering lunch. He’s frowning, and Misty thinks he looks calmer than her. Maybe because he knows what to do when a kid is sick. The thought that this might be somewhat mundane for him gives her some relief.

“Ash.” When he speaks, Brock’s voice doesn’t waver or crack. He must know what to do. Misty feels calmer hearing it. “Can you hear me?”

Pikachu has his little nose buried in Ash’s hair, his eyes squeezed shut. He whimpers, quiet and muffled. Misty moves her fingers across the soft inside of Ash’s wrist, running her fingerpad over the beat of his slow pulse beneath his skin. She releases him as Brock carefully pulls Ash back into his chair, and hearing Ash groan lightens the heaviness inside her, and Pikachu seems to settle a little. Misty feels the echo of Ash’s skin against hers, the softness, the trembling and his heartbeat running underneath.

Ash’s head lolls back, his skin drained of its usual vitality. Misty reaches for his wrist again, and feels his fragile pulse. It makes her think of holding a baby Pokemon, shaking and vulnerable. Brock places a hand on Ash’s forehead, his mouth narrow.

“What happened?”

“I think he’s been poisoned,” says Brock. “Probably a Pokemon in the forest, and it took a while to kick in. Some poison won’t have a quick reaction for humans.”

Once or twice, Ash had gone off the path, on the lookout for new Pokemon and bristling with excitement. Something must have bitten or scratched him, and he hadn’t even noticed. Misty wants to laugh. It’s so much like Ash to get taken by his own excitement.

“We need to move him,” says Brock. His expression softens when he looks at her. “It’ll be more comfortable for him to lay down and easier for me to treat him.”

They get to work, Misty rolling out Ash’s blue sleeping bag on the grass while Brock carefully lifts him out of his chair. Pikachu scrabbles up Brock’s arm to sit on his shoulder so that he can watch Ash, his eyes wide and quivering with concern.

Ash groans; he looks so small like that, and it doesn’t take much effort for Brock to move him. They carefully arrange him in his sleeping bag, and it makes Misty feel a little better to see him comfortable like that. Pikachu hops down from Brock’s shoulder and shifts up next to Ash, burying his nose into the crook of his neck. That makes Misty feel better, too, as if Pikachu is drawing on the bond he has with Ash to will him to be better.

Meanwhile, Brock rummages through his bag, setting out medicine bottles and bags of colourful berries. Misty picks up a bowl and takes it to the riverside. There, she scoops up some water. It’s cool and soothing as her fingers dip beneath the surface, as she’d thought, earlier. Something flickers and moves underwater, its silvery scales catching the sunlight.

“You’re worried, huh, Pikachu?” says Misty, when she returns with the water. When Pikachu looks up, her heart quails a little.

“Pikachu, Pikachu-pi,” he says, gravely.

Ash’s trembling can be heard in his breathing, his paled skin covered in a sheen of sweat. He sighs, quietly, as Misty places a wet cloth on his forehead. She puts the back of her hand against his cheek. It’s soft and far too hot.

“Brock, he’s burning up.”

“Hmm.” Brock takes a small, blue tube and squeezes some viscous stuff into a bowl, before emptying a little bag of pink, heart-shaped berries on top of it. He starts crushing the ingredients with a pestle, mashing it all together into a slick paste. “Taking the edge off the poison will help lower the fever, too.”

Fidgeting, Misty watches Ash’s clammy, sickly face, tapping her fingers against each other in her lap. Then she reaches for his hand, once again, lacing her fingers with his. She strokes her thumb against the back of his hand, even as it sits limply against her palm. She misses his spark, his healthy glow.

Brock brings a spoonful of the mixture he created to Ash’s lips, slipping the spoon between them and onto his tongue as gently as he can. Ash’s mouth moves weakly as he swallows. He screws his face up against the light as his eyes open a fraction.

Misty pulls her hand away from his, folding it back into her lap as Ash blinks awake, his eyes still dull and heavy-lidded. Dazed, he looks at Brock, and then at her. Pikachu pricks up his ears, his eyes warm and hopeful.

“What happened?” Ash’s voice comes out as a weak croak.

“You were poisoned by a Pokemon in the forest,” says Brock, spoonfeeding him a little more of the mixture. “And then at lunch time, you passed out.”

“It happened because you wanted to go that way,” adds Misty. Now that he’s recovering, it feels more comfortable to let a little irritation come through. “Even though we didn’t know anything about that route and we should have gone round the outside. But you promised us that it would be fun.”

She doesn’t add anything about how he made her worry.

“You need to be more careful,” says Brock, putting aside his bowl and picking up another bag of berries. This time, it was full of blue berries, round and firm.

“Pika pikachu, Pikapi,” agrees Pikachu. He lays an urgent paw on Ash’s sleeping bag.

Ash laughs, and it’s brittle and raspy in his throat.

“We did have fun, though, right?” says Ash. Brock offers him a berry and he shifts slowly to take it, running his fingers over its smooth surface. “I was right.”

Ash bites into his berry, letting the excess juice run down his chin. Misty wants to scowl, but the sight of him beginning to regain his energy and cheer just makes her sigh, and then smile.


End file.
